Recommendation 15

HM Government Acknowledged

The Government agrees with this recommendation. Pavement riding of rental e-scooters in trial areas is illegal and is a genuine cause of anxiety for pedestrians, including vulnerable road users. Trial areas and e-scooter operators have had it made clear to them that incidents such as pavement riding should be minimised and to deploy all available tools to do so. This includes using geo-fencing technology, ensuring users of e-scooters are fully aware of the legal basis for use and potential consequences if the law is broken, and using behavioural—or ‘nudge’—techniques to encourage user compliance. Understanding the extent of pavement riding and how it can be mitigated are important questions for the e-scooter trial evaluation programme. The Government is therefore considering a range of options to monitor its extent, including use of camera sensor data in trial areas and data from trials of new onboard sensor devices, already installed by two operators in trial areas to detect when pavement riding takes place and determine who was riding the e-scooter at the time. If successful, this technique could allow for users who repeatedly ride on the pavement to lose their e-scooter account. The Government will consider this, and a variety of other possible approaches and their efficacy, across the duration of the trials.